Global Gypsy
Inspirational people leading extraordinary lives
Mike Handcock
‘Life is a movie. You can write your own script and star in the movie. The people in this book are doing just that.’
Mike Handcock (December 2006)
Published by Paris Marketing Limited PO Box 333-56 Takapuna Auckland (NZ)
Associated companies and representatives throughout the world.
This book is copyright. Except for purposes of fair reviewing, no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Infringers of copyright render themselves liable to prosecution.
© 2006 Mike Handcock
The author asserts his moral rights over the work
Cover photo Grant Southam
Design by Russell Neal
ISBN
First Published 2007
Printed in Singapore
Contents
Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam 8
Questions answered for the budding traveller 97
Introduction
Bizarre, here I am starting to write this book from my 2006 office. The address is 747 – 400 somewhere above the earth at 36,000 feet. What a year. Like most professional speakers and authors I spend a lot of time travelling. In fact during the 365 days of the last twelve months I have completed over 270,000 kilometres in air travel, which was represented in 114 flights. I have delivered speeches in 29 different cities around the world. I have also done quite a bit of personal travel, lived a life not without tribulation and met at least 5,000 new people, so please don’t be offended if it takes me a while to get your name…or mine for that matter.
If a plane travels at an average of 850 kilometres an hour that means nearly 300 hours of flying, plus an average wait of two hours in each airport ads up to another 150 hours. That’s nearly 13 weeks of the average working week. Aah! I can here some of you say, but honestly it’s pretty good. I have a glass of champagne next to me, plenty of leg room (thank goodness for Premium economy) and I can actually do something productive, like write to you. The average Sydney or Auckland worker spends 90 minutes a day commuting, which ads up to approximately 350 hours of sitting in traffic. ‘Same Same but Different’ as the Thai’s say.
I could regale you of all my aeroplane stories in this book and maybe I will tell a couple, but picture just this particular flight. I upgrade to premium economy. I get a window seat…but hey presto…no window as I am on the exit door. So I have the leg room but am balancing my computer and the champagne on a table the size of a beer coaster. Also, it’s late October…I haven’t quite made the new movie schedule which comes out November one and on my last flight I finally achieved a secret goal. I have now seen every darn movie. I was down to Garfield Two and Cars, both animated and both very good I must say.
The thing is I manifested all of this. I can’t complain. Right from the time I was seventeen and I watched movies where businessmen got on planes all I wanted to do was be a businessman travelling to exotic locations for business. Some businesspeople say travelling is a necessary evil. Not for me. It’s an absolute pleasure, a blessing, a life changing, grounding humbling and incredible honour and not one day goes past when I don’t thank the universe for the experiences I have had. I recall a story told to me by a good friend and mentor Terry Rogers, who has been a chairman of numerous companies. Terry spent all his riches on life experience. In fact I read an email from him today. At 63 he and his wife are 300 nautical miles west of the UK on their luxury yacht in the middle of a force 10 gale. (which he says is sort of fun). Terry told me one day how he attended his aunts 94th birthday and how at the party his brother was saying how Terry had blown a serious amount of money. Terry’s aunt interjected and said “At 94 I would rather have Terry’s experience and memories than all the money in the world.”
You see team, we come into the world with nothing and we leave it with nothing. Are we here to do and experience nothing? I don’t think so. It occurred to me a few months ago when I was looking at material for my next book (the next one that is) that I have met the most incredible people, living the most extra ordinary lives this year. Their stories deserve telling. There is so much I have learnt from them and I want you to learn too. So I thought I would write a book called global gypsy, as mostly I travel the world with my guitar and meet these wonderful people. I have personally grown so much in the last few years and if this book can help you grow as well, then it and I have done our jobs.
So we start the book on the 14th of December 2005 and finish it on the 14th of December 2006. Why you might say do I select those 365 days. Well the fact is that’s my birthday and it’s nearly the end of the year, particularly from a business viewpoint. Also, it’s a great way for me to start as it was one of my lowest days ever, which I will explain. There are so many crossovers that I feel we will deal with the book on a country basis, so each chapter will be dedicated to one or more countries. For example I have been to India five times this year so it may be confusing to be chronological. Plus I heard that most people only read the first two chapters of a personal development book so let’s break that boundary. You can read this intro and then the chapter on your country. Dare to be different.
For those of you looking for quick practical advice you can implement immediately I would suggest there will be plenty of that throughout the pages as I am going to relate some very interesting stories. However, one piece of quick practical advice might be what movie to hire next and since I have seen quite a few this year (so many I just cant remember them all) I feel suitably impressed by a handful that you shouldn’t miss.
Probably my favourite is a simple fun movie called ‘Elizabethtown’ with Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom. I saw this in early February and I still clearly remember it. Probably because it has one of the most profound lines I have heard this year. Orlando’s character loses all his bosses money. In fact $9 Billion and that’s not chump change as they say in Chicago. Then his Dad dies and on the flight to the funeral he meets the hostess (Kirsten) and they develop a thing. He doesn’t tell her about the $9 Billion but eventually has to, as he is about to be on the cover of every magazine in the USA as a loser. He spends ages getting up the courage and when he finally does she says: ‘I don’t care…in fact I will give you five minutes to wallow in delicious pity and then let’s forget it’. How many of us wallow for an eternity before moving on? Does it really serve you? Eventually we all know we have to get over it, whatever it is. I teach this to people all over the world, how moving straight to acceptance instead of going to blame and anger is the right decision. Let’s start our story on the 14th of December 2005. The day I had to take my own advice.
(Oh, and by the way…thanks for reading this book…I mean it…Namaste)
Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam
I had left New Zealand on the 13th of December at about 10pm. In fact I was going to spend my birthday on a plane. Well some of it anyway. I was on my way to do a speaking gig in Kuala Lumpur, meet with my publisher there (as two of my books were published in Malaysia), meet with Roger Hamilton, Chairman and Founder of XL Results Foundation (more on Roger later) and meet some events people with a view to creating a future partnership. I upgraded to business class as it was to be my birthday. When I arrived I had the 14th off. It’s a ritual I have done for about 6 years. I just do not work on my birthday. I was also to meet my wife Claire whom I hadn’t seen in 7 weeks. About that I was pretty nervous as I tucked into my Verve Cliquot and gazed out the window. I recalled a flight, not long after September 11 2001, 9/11 it’s called now. I was on top on the world trade centre about a week prior to its demise, one of now several times I have missed a catastrophe by a few weeks. The others being the Bali Bomb and the Temple of Hatchesput massacre in Eygpt.
In that flight I was flying London to Tokyo and I was over Russia. I love looking out the window of planes. I rarely get any sleep when I fly. I don’t want to miss out on stuff. I recall we were over Siberia and I was looking down at the forest, thinking; ‘wow…there is not much down there except a long river. I wonder what the people looking up are thinking seeing this plane. For a few brief seconds we technically occupy the same piece of ground, just at different altitudes’. (Which is rather like corporate life and corporate friends.) Later I read a book by Ben Kozel, a young Australian adventurer, called ‘Three men in a raft’. In the book it turns out Ben was in Siberia that very day, rafting down the river to the Sea. He looked up and saw a plane and thought: ‘I wonder what those people are doing. They are here, but they are not here and they are living such a different life right now than I am, even though we occupy the same space.’ Now I don’t know if that was my plane, but I am pretty sure it was the same day as he had dates in his book.
Synchronicity is everywhere. I guess Ben will read this book one day and think: ‘Cool’.
Claire had left in late October to volunteer at an orphanage in Vietnam. Of her I was incredibly proud. In the months before she went, there was unrest at home. We were constantly bickering. I really had no concept that it was final. I wasn’t happy and neither was she, but we had been to pre marriage counselling, been married only two years, had experienced many great times and even had two fridge magnets that said ‘Lasting Love is a Decision’. About one month before Claire left she started telling me she wanted her own place, and that we had to get an apartment for her. It took me a few days to get my head around it, but I finally agreed. And that’s what I thought was going to happen on her return. We had planned for me to meet her in KL and then we were off on a big adventure to Thailand and Cambodia over Christmas. We loved travelling together and this time we had invited our friend Lisa to join us.
A few weeks after Claire left I got a ‘Dear Mike’ email. Claire was never coming back. She had found her home in Vietnam. I was pretty floored, but was trying to deal with the possibility. I felt that if the trip could go ahead, and it still was that there was hope. Claire had always been very committed to us in the past. We were to meet in KL for my birthday. I was on a plane and I was nervous.
It turned out I had good right to be nervous. The Claire that walked into the Hotel at KLCC was a very different Claire. She pretty much didn’t want to be there and she ended up going out with her friends. My birthday sucked, we argued, I watched TV in the room, she went out and I felt pretty depressed. You can’t control what happens to you in life. You can control how you react to it.
I did my business in KL and then we left for Phuket in Thailand and the magical island of Kho Phi Phi. This was where the movie ‘The Beach’ was filmed. It’s is one of the most stunning islands in the world and Maya Bay, where the movie was actually made, is incredible to say the least. We actually had a few good days on Kho Phi Phi and I felt we had a chance. It was the old Claire and Mike show for a while. I was going slowly of course, but I felt there was hope.
It was on Kho Phi Phi I met my first extraordinary couple for the year. But firstly back to Malaysia for a moment.
Dr YKK badges himself a creativity expert. At about 60 years of age he has a pretty good life. He runs workshops throughout most of Asia on creativity. He has about five books out (check out www.mindbloom.com) and he has a very funky business card. It has creativity exercises on it. In fact one of them states that if only 2% of people get it right. I did…which only goes to prove why I can never focus on one thing and am constantly doing something new. YKK is an energetic and enthusiastic person who lives life to the fullest and you can be sure that if you attend one of his workshops you will be in for a real treat and most certainly your mind will bloom.
On Kho Phi Phi we met Theep and Naomi. Theep runs a rock climbing business out of the well named Carpe Diem Bar. He’s a Thai national. Naomi was from the UK and found herself wanting to stay in Thailand for a while having met Theep and fallen instantly in love. She was 22 when I met her. On the 26th of December 2004 the Tsunami hit the coasts of Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and parts of India. On the 26th of this year there was to be the first anniversary of the wave, to which there would be a ceremony for those who were killed on Kho Phi Phi. We decided to join the group that would volunteer to prepare the island for that event.
The Tsunami caused over a quarter of a million deaths world wide and on Kho Phi Phi approximately one thousand people were killed. Kho Phi Phi is a small island and the major business and accommodation area is on an isthmus. This is only at maximum ten feet above sea level and is approximately 100 metres wide.
So at 8.30am on the 26th of December 2004 Naomi was out for a morning walk along the beach at the eastern side of the island. She didn’t really see the wave at first, she recalls hearing it. She looked up to see a wall of water approaching. By the time you see a Tsunami it is pretty much too late to out run it. What made things worse on Kho Phi Phi was the fact that the water hit from both sides of the town. A 10 metre wave from one direction and an 8 metre wave from the other, which met somewhere in the middle of the town.
Naomi recalls looking up and seeing a huge wall of water approaching. Knowing it was going to hit her she grabbed hold of a palm tree and with every ounce of strength and determination she had she hung on waiting for it to hit. She doesn’t remember anything else.
Theep was up in the hotel room on the fifth floor. He heard the wave hit the town. Naturally disorientated he couldn’t believe what he saw out the window, and his only thought was of Naomi. By the time he got to the lobby of the hotel, there was no lobby left. In fact everything was gone, including the people. Theep shared with me that he had no idea of the number of bodies he looked at trying to find Naomi. He put it in the hundreds. The beach was totally destroyed as was most of the town. Theep kept hunting. In fact he hardly gave up for days. Five days later, with Naomi’s passport in hand (it was left in the room) Theep was exhausted. He had almost given up. The small community was in chaos. At Christmas there are approximately ten thousand people on the island and many of them were frantically searching for loved ones. Theep had been showing Naomi’s passport to everyone in hope someone could shed some light on her disappearance.
After five days he finally discovered that some of the more critical people had been airlifted to the hospital in Bangkok so he caught a boat ride the ninety minutes to Phuket, and got himself to Bangkok.
He found Naomi. She was still unconscious. The wave had literally grabbed her from the tree and thrown her against all sorts of stuff. In fact it had literally torn her apart. With Theep now in the room just his presence must have had some effect. Naomi woke up. She was terribly injured and in fact there were questions as to her ever walking again.
I am very pleased to report that when I met Naomi nearly twelve months later, she was walking with a slight limp and whilst she still gets tired she is on Kho Phi Phi. In fact she is committed to the place, giving all of her time and energy for the people of the island to rebuild their paradise and to rebuild their lives. Nearly every person lost someone that day. I spoke to another lady who lost her whole business, livelihood and staff. For Naomi, she was leading one of the major groups committed to cleaning up Kho Phi Phi and getting things back to the way they were. She had been interviewed by the BBC and of course her family wanted her home but this brave 22 year old stayed to help the people she had come to love. In fact, she had even started rock climbing again.
It was an amazing experience working with the other volunteers, who were mainly holiday makers looking to give back. It was nearly 40 degrees each day, but we spent most of them literally digging the sand and picking up the pieces of peoples broken lives. Backs hurting and sweating like no gym workout could get you to do we worked. We created camaraderie and spirit. When I looked at the photos of what had been there before I could hardly believe it. Virtually 6 star accommodation beach bungalows with four poster canopy beds and huge double bi-fold doors opening out to the most amazing view were all gone. There were a few foundations, broken glass, cups and plates, clothing buried deep in the sand and even the occasional full beer bottle. A year had covered a lot of the scarring, but it was still there.
At one stage a European woman ran screaming and crying down to the water. We all looked and Rob, who I was working with at the time said: ‘What’s that about?’ I replied: ‘She probably lost someone one here’. ‘Oh’ he replied ‘I forgot about that’. It was so easy to forget, given the beauty. That scene touched me at a very deep level, and as I write this a tear comes to my eye. The paradise that is our lives can change very quickly. Are you living the life of your dreams today?
After four days of fun in the sun a terrible thing happened. Someone spiked Claire’s drink at the bar one night. She was pretty upset the next day and our whole dynamic changed. What had been going well just turned pear shaped. Claire announced she was leaving and was going back to Kuala Lumpur to spend Christmas with friends and that she was then going back to Vietnam. Could I come? No. So we did the civilized thing. She hugged me goodbye. I said thanks for being my wife. She said thank you too and she left. It was December 24.
I always wondered what it was like to spend Christmas alone. Did I cry you wonder? Absolutely! Luckily I am used to being alone, having been brought up as an only child so I have certain anchors I revert to in situations when I am alone. We all have anchors, not all of them are good. Like yelling when we don’t get our way, because that served us as a child. Mine is to just regress, and cease communication except for necessity. Basically I read books.
So on Christmas day I caught the ferry back to the mainland. I didn’t stay for the ceremony. My work was done. I checked into a hotel in Phuket where I was promptly informed for my 2300 Baht not to bring a woman back to my room after 10pm. No hope of that. I sat around the pool and had a really long shower. Later on Christmas day my big dinner and present to myself was that I bought a barbeque lobster at a restaurant and ate the whole thing. Happy Christmas.
You can’t control what happens to you, but you can control your reaction to it. Yes I had to be embarrassed on our up coming tour by telling the guide we were one short, my wife. Yes I was feeling like crap. However I had spent the last couple of years telling others how much time we waste going to blame in situations like this and how we end up getting to acceptance one day, because it is the best thing to do…to move on. Now I had to walk my talk. Thank goodness for the work I do. I was still unhappy and today I would have preferred to have a different outcome, but I decided to try and have a great time. I was going to Cambodia. What a place! Yes, there would be times of reflection and other times for tears, but why drag the world down and affect myself and those around me even more. I made a decision that Christmas day not to grieve, yet to accept.
I learned something the first day of our trip to Cambodia. Actually I learned a few things. Firstly the road to Siam Reap from the Thai border is the worst road I have ever travelled on. It makes the Birdsville track in outback Australia look like an autobahn. It’s hard to describe this road. It is the major highway from Thailand. At one point a semi trailer had fallen through the road. The pot holes were that deep you could see the USA through them (well not quite). There were more livestock and people and contraptions (the best way to describe some of the Cambodian vehicles) on the road than in the fields. The scenery was stunning. But why wasn’t there any asphalt? It turns out that Thai airlines apparently pays the Cambodian government not to fix the road. That way everyone (apart from us) flies. Everyone, including our friend Lisa who was joining us. She refused to take the road opting to fly in from Laos and meet us in Siam Reap.
The second thing I learnt was what it was like to laugh and I mean really laugh. For three hours on that Road in a dodgy car with Tamara, Nicole and Jess from Melbourne and a psychotic driver who was doing well in excess of 130kph, which was possibly at least 100kph over the safe speed, dodging holes, cows, farmers, children, head on collisions and all the time not being able to sit still as we were thrown across each other, whilst listening to cheesy euro pop and the Cambodian National Anthem, alias ‘Hello is it me your looking for?’ by Lionel Ritchie, we screamed with laughter. We were in tears for literally an hour, my stomach hurt and one of the girls nearly wet herself. I would highly recommend to each and every person to have an incredible belly laugh regularly. It’s like a huge soul cleanse.
Cambodia is a wonderful country and it truly moved me in many ways. Between 1979 and 1994 Pol Pot basically eradicated two thirds of the population through organised genocide. There we were in the Killing Fields where some of the graves held 8,000 people and we were walking on broken human bones. Everyone in the country lost members of their family. Our tour guide ‘Mr V, an incredible spirit who started everyday with an Angkor Beer and the saying ‘ My country, My Beer’ (which is the Angkor motif) summed up the genocide where he lost his uncles and aunts by saying; ‘Oh well it could have been worse for us.’
We visited the land mine museum. There are still over 500,000 land mines buried in the fields, and there are an incredible amount of victims, mostly smiling and getting on with their day. ‘Oh well it could have been worse.’ On one afternoon, Nicole, Jess and I went to the Children’s Hospital in Siam Reap to give blood. We were surprised by the cleanliness and the free soda pops they gave us. On the way out a group of children ran up to us and said ‘Thank You’ in English. Very cool.
One of the most amazing things for me was the children and the villagers. I sincerely hope the west doesn’t poison their spirit. They are the most beautiful people. They have nothing, yet they have everything. They have love. We travelled through many villages, sometimes on the back of a bullock wagon being dragged by a solitary 50cc motor bike. Everyone would literally run from their houses and yell: ‘Hello Hello’ to which we would reply: ‘Hello Hello’ They would laugh and we would laugh and off we would go.
On one such venture we took a whole heap of school supplies to one of the more remote villages. We filled our packs with pens, books, treats, several Hacky Sacks and the occasional blow up soccer ball and headed down the dirt track 30 kms to the village. We were literally mobbed by the children and their families and I guess we felt like extremely humble Santa Claus handing out these gifts, which were accepted with many tears and laughs.
It was then that I saw this shy child, of about five years old, totally naked hanging behind the other children. I had run out of stuff to give. The other children moved on and it was only then that he gained the courage to approach me and hold out his hand. With tussled hair, full of dirt from the days play, he looked at me with the soul of an angel and my heart bled. I had nothing to give him. A quick check of my back pack resulted in not finding even one treat, or sweet I could give. I felt devastated. I searched again. This time my hand came up on a small banana. It had been in my pack way past its used by date and certainly wouldn’t have made it onto the shelf at Safeway. I thought…I can’t give him this. He still stared. So in one action I remorsefully pulled the banana out feeling guilt and frustration for the fact I had so much in my world but I had nothing to give. He looked at me and grabbed the banana tight. The most incredible and loving smile spread across his face like paint across a canvas and he ran to his mother down the road screaming; ‘Yay Yay Yay’ His mother smiled a huge grin, and waved to me. It was then I really cried.
Unlike some of our group I didn’t eat the deep fried rice spiders. Apparently they taste like prawns. I did however see the Irrawaddy dolphins. One of three fresh water dolphins in the world. The other two are in the Amazon (which I have seen) and the Ganges (which I have not).
Following Cambodia the idea was for Lisa, Claire and I to go to Vietnam and hang out. Claire was in Vietnam by now, but she didn’t want to see me so Lisa and I went to Hoi An, the beautiful art town on the coast near Danang and the famous China Beach. Hoi An is a great town and I supported the local artist community quite a bit by stocking up on art.
Lisa Dudson has been a friend of mine for a few years now and it was in Hoi An sitting around the pool that we cooked up a great business partnership. Lisa was young financial planner of the year in 2004. She is a successful businesswoman, property investor and has also written one of the best selling financial books in New Zealands history. Lisa runs a business called Acumen (www.acumen.co.nz).
You never know who you are going to meet.
I went to a financial planning industry breakfast in 2003. Lisa Dudson was the guest speaker. I thought I would go see what she had to say about property, which she was known for at the time. I liked Lisa’s talk and immediately approached her afterwards and said we should ‘do’ coffee. Lisa doesn’t do coffee, but she did suggest Jasmine Tea and I showed up at her office the week later. We became instant friends and she later in 2004 introduced me to XL Results Foundation which has had a big impact on who I am. Lisa and I had always talked about doing business but had never done it. Until the Hoi An pool.
I owned a property investment company which wasn’t a business I really enjoyed running. In fact the whole company was a large contributing factor to Claire’s and my disconnect. I had been trying to sell the business, but just prior to Christmas it had fallen through. Lisa also had a property investment company which she wished to take to the next level. In a twenty minute conversation we pretty much decided to merge our skills and start a new brand where we worked in our area of expertise and thus with the two heads got exponential leverage.
One of the lessons you learn as you get older is to trust your instincts so much more. In school we were taught to use our head. It’s a tough habit to break, yet all my best decisions have been made with my feelings, not my brain. So in that short conversation, what was to become AVANA was born, and to date it has done well.
Vietnam is trying hard to become a first world country and it is coming ahead. I find it a shame really. Unlike Cambodia that is still very rural, very humble and very much like it was fifty years ago. Vietnam is certainly in the modern world with a thud. They make good use of tourism but don’t really want it. They develop their land, but most people still want to live the simple life. In some ways that means the change is too rapid. There is still very much a feeling of struggle between tradition and the 21st century. You can chug down the Hoi An river on an old tub where the water laps at your feet as the boat pokes along, passing villages of near naked children playing and fishing, only to arrive at your destination. The very funky red river cooking school and expensive lunch. Oh for progress!
Following this trip, which did a lot of good for my soul I went back to Thailand twice in 2006, both on business and some investigation. I had accepted my situation by the time my feet touched land in New Zealand in late January. So I had to look at the opportunities the world would deliver in 2006.
In my first trip to Thailand I met with Rene Feddersen. Rene is a great entrepreneur who owns three very diverse businesses. He is also developing property in Thailand, mainly coastal property. Such is the kindness of people I meet around the world. Rene lent me his car and driver for a whole day so I could go and look at a variety of coastal properties near Pattaya on the Gulf of Thailand. Thailand has a myriad of affordable coastal properties and one of the things I have really learnt this year is that its not so hard to do business or own property internationally. You just have to do it.
I also spent some more time with Andy Steele. Andy had lived in Thailand for a while, originally being from the UK. He had come with a vision of starting a foundation which he called ‘Plant a Tree Today’. This foundation was started in November 2005 and has seen incredible growth. Andy won the leading entrepreneur prize at Bali in March and he mainly won not because of how great his plan was, or the fact that he had this incredible will to create social responsibility. He won because of his ability to create attraction to his cause. How did he do this? Simply, he was Andy Steele. A guy in his early thirties with a big genuine heart and a vision. You got him in an instant. It was his demeanour, his words, his body language…the whole package. If you are not getting the attention you deserve then I would suggest it’s because you probably are not being totally authentic. That’s often all it takes. When you are the most vulnerable, you are often creating the greatest attraction for others.
Andy and Plant a Tree Today (www.plant-a-tree-today.org) are re foresting parts of Thailand and Indonesia. In fact their cause has been so successful just in its first year that they are now dealing with growth issues like any small to medium enterprise. In 2006 they launched the first carbon life credit. This is where you can make a donation and pay for all of the carbon you are likely to generate during your life. It’s a cool idea. For the readers that are still thinking UH! Basically carbon that we emit via electricity, fuel when we travel, breathing etc is causing global warming. I learnt from Andy that the average temperature in Siberia is now 4 degrees above what it was fifty years ago. Not a bad thing you say…well better buy your coastal property on a cliff, because if we keep going the ice melting will make beach holidays a thing of the past. So by purchasing a carbon life credit, which costs around $750USD you will plant 500 trees which will take up all the carbon you emit during your lifetime. What a great way to leave a positive legacy.
Australia
Why am I writing about Australia when I was born there? This year I have met and had so many fabulous experiences with people from Australia. I arrived in Australia in late January on my first trip. I had a lot of fun on a Virgin flight from Brisbane to Sydney with Roger Hamilton chastising the Virgin staff by waiving a magazine featuring Richard Branson with some pretty girls, by saying; ‘Look at what your boss is up to while you work’.
In Sydney I met Justin Herald for the first time. Justin and I have since become good friends (although Justin says he doesn’t take on new friends) working together on a few events. Justin is an incredible dude (sorry mate...I know you don’t like being called a dude…but you are). Approximately ten years before we met, Justin was mid twenties, married, one child, no job and $1.25 in the bank. After going to see his father, who was a minister, at church one Sunday Justin was told he had a bad attitude by a lady in the congregation. So Justin, who never suffers fools lightly, borrowed $50 of his brother and had two ‘Attitude’ T Shirts printed, with the express purpose of wearing them the next week to ‘hack’ her off. After a ton of enquiry for said shirts Justin became a businessman and started Attitude Inc which he launched and eventually sold in 2004 having made a over $100 million dollars. He now has 5 best selling books, his own newspaper column, been a regular celebrity on TV and is an international speaker who is in high demand.
After having spent a few days with Justin on a recent speaking tour I learned that he is absolutely savage on poor customer service, has very high standards for himself and others and is a great prankster. ‘I was called up by the biggest radio show in Australia who had heard about the $50 thing. I thought it was one of my mates playing a joke so I told them to &%$# off. That was a new experience for them. After I realised I agreed to go on the show by phone. All their other guests made the effort to go in. Now I realise how much leverage they have in the media I laugh at what I did, but they agreed. After that show the phone rang off the hook. I ended up on TV on ‘A Current Affair’ and nearly one hundred and eighty stores stocked my products within a week.’